Emilio Ferer

EMILIO FERRER CABRERA (Cullera, Valencia, 1888–1962).
“What a beard you have, Don Emilio,” 1930.
Ink and colored pencil on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner. Signed, dated, and inscribed on the reverse.
Measurements: 12 x 17.5 cm; 31.5 x 37.5 cm (frame).

A painter specializing in genre scenes depicting Valencian life, Emilio Ferrer Cabrera also masterfully tackled landscape painting. He trained at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia and completed his training working alongside José Mongrell. In 1913, he received a scholarship to further his studies in Paris and Rome. In the years that followed, Ferrer exhibited his work in Valencia, Madrid, and Barcelona, and in 1920 and 1922 he participated in the National Fine Arts Exhibition. Between late 1927 and early 1928, he traveled to Buenos Aires, where he also exhibited his paintings. He published his works in magazines of the time, such as “La Esfera,” and in 1931 he held a major exhibition at the Societat Musical Santa Cecilia in Cullera, where several of his works were sold to British and American collectors. He also created various editorial illustrations, such as those for the Spanish translations of the stories by the Catalan writer Caterina Albert i Paradís—writing under the pseudonym Víctor Català—published between 1928 and 1929. In 1935, he moved to Ceuta, where he took a position as a teacher at the Hispano-Moroccan Institute, and it was there that the Civil War caught him by surprise. He then devoted himself first to portraiture and later to photography, although after the war he gradually returned to painting. In 1988, on the occasion of the centennial of his birth, several celebrations were held in his honor in Cullera. His work is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia.